


Things Could Be Worse

by graywrites



Category: Victorious (TV)
Genre: Ahhhhhhhh, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cancer, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, i want to stop capitalizing my titles but its the aesthetic now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 11:26:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16575560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/graywrites/pseuds/graywrites
Summary: All that Tori can do, when everything is horrible and she knows she might be dying, is lie about it. It's just easier if Jade doesn't know, if she can have that distance, that space in between. Maybe nobody will get hurt that way.





	Things Could Be Worse

**Author's Note:**

> normally fics like this arent really my thing but guess im a certified fic writier now! this was a prompt rq for a cute anon i hope i did it justice it's a little disjointed but i went for emotion. if this isnt medically accurate. sorry idk it's fanfiction and im failing chemistry so i only really had google but i tried my best. i dropped the ball on proofreading by not doing it tho sorry ily all hope u enjoy

 

It’s just radio silence. Okay, it isn’t; it’s _so much worse than that._ One-word texts and scattered conversations that Tori doesn’t hold up her end of. And yet: Jade can’t bear to bring it up, doesn’t dare call Tori out on it, because whatever they still have, hanging on by a thread of one-sided conversation, Jade isn’t going to ruin it like she’s been known to ruin absolutely everything else.

They’re, like, not a thing, Tori and Jade. Except, they sort of _are,_ or were, before radio silence and Jade just desperately trying to keep her mouth shut, but she’s so sick of waiting for everything to crash and burn, waiting for Tori to tell her she’s just lost interest.

Because it’s out of nowhere, out of nothing, this sudden distance. And Tori is there at school, _sort of_. Present and not too quiet, but none of her wan smiles reach her eyes, _not_ that Jade notices, and everything is so half-way, now.

It was the week Tori wasn’t in school, some time around there. She was normal at first, and then she _wasn’t_ , going from paragraphs via text begging Jade to bring over soup, full of gooey pet names and affection, telling Jade she’d go to the doctor the next day.

Jade asked for an update the next day, in a way that didn’t make her Tori’s _girlfriend_ , but still made her _something_ , and Tori said she had mono, and just stopped talking like she did after that. Jade asked her if she was okay, and Tori just replied, “I’m sick,” as if that’s all that Jade meant when the texts became abruptly short and curt.

Eventually, Tori returned to school, and things were just as fucked up as ever. Every time Jade would ask to spend time with her, Tori’d pretend to text her mom, pretend that she said no, pretend to be sad. So, Jade stopped asking.

Jade thinks this must just be because things were good. They _were_. But everything has rules, and the ones that follow Jade around, hover over her like hands on her shoulders? Things just can’t go too well for too long. And Jade’s never been one to follow rules, but what can she do? What the fuck can she do?

 

When Trina found out Tori was maybe-dying, she rolled her eyes and said she thought it was pretty sad Tori was doing all of that _just_ for attention, and then promptly stormed out of the doctor’s office to wait in the car, which, Tori figured, was just Trina’s way of telling her she cared.

(Tori was still thankful, even though it was so terrible, because it was also so _Trina_. And Tori is grateful, too, that after she got this earth-shattering, terrible news, there was only a beat of silence before Trina went and said something awful, so Tori could act like it’s normal, like it’s just not so bad. If Trina wasn’t terrible, then she’d really be in trouble. So everything must not be so bad. Right?)

That’s the entire reason Tori doesn’t start crying, then and there, with the doctor frowning at her, and her parents exchanging glances over her head, neither of them offering her any comfort, like if they touch her, she’ll _break_. But the whole thing is just jarring enough that Tori starts laughing, tinny in the pharmaceutical quiet, like nothing’s really wrong.

It was the flu. For a while, Tori got to think it was the flu. Better days were those. It was a flu that she couldn’t shake, not even _after_ her parents came home from their sudden four-day vacation to the Bahamas, sure that they’d return to a household that was in order, healthy and easy.

So: doctor. Doctor, who looked all worried and weird. Blood tests, an hour away, in a big, fancy hospital. And it all passes in a haze, until the doctor says ‘leukemia,’ and her sister says, ‘pathetic,’ and she drives home with her phone turned off, just to make sure she doesn’t start googling statistics.

(Okay. 68.2%. Whatever.)

She doesn’t even cry that night in the muggy heat of her bedroom, she just climbs out through her window despite the aching in her bones because everything is fuzzy, skin too-tight on her frame, something wrong in her _blood_.

She finds herself outside of Jade’s house, standing in the dark and the late-night early-morning haze that makes her head hurt, heart pounding in her chest. And she does the right thing, and she turns around and walks the whole way back home, because she knows better than to drag anyone down with her.

It’s Jade, and every time things get too heavy or hurt too much, which is _all of the fucking time_ , she’s thinking of Jade, longing for her, for not being _by herself_ in this, but she just can’t do that to someone.

Because things could be bad. They really could be. And Tori is not going to ruin love for Jade. Because, see, if Tori dies, Jade carries that pain for far longer than Tori will have to, and _all_ of her future relationships, God, they’ll be- Tori doesn’t know. _Messy_.

Tori doesn’t want to die, but she’s just not worth ruining everything for Jade. Because they’re hardly even a _thing_. And if they just could have hated each other for a few more months, then this would be okay. But it isn’t, so things just aren’t easy.

So, it’s better if they just break up, or _whatever_ , better if Jade hates her totally or thinks Tori cheated or _something_ (well, they’re not a _thing_ , exactly) better if things are _bad_ , because worst case scenario, Jade is dancing on Tori’s grave, and best case scenario, Tori has a lot of explaining to do once she hits remission.

But Tori, still, is selfish. She does her best, but she just can’t break it off. She keeps it unemotional, she tries to keep the conversations dry and unenjoyable, like maybe that way, there won’t be much to miss.

But she just can’t stop talking to Jade entirely. Not when everything is so _terrible_ , when she feels so awful and she’s just so scared, just so alone, when she wants nothing more than to tell Jade everything, to let her be _there_.

And all she can do is her best.

That proves difficult. _God_. She’s, like, _getting worse._ And she can’t stay in school, really. She has to stay at the hospital, actually. More rigorous treatment, like, go-bald treatment, and she’s trying to reconcile the fact that she might die with the fact that her cheekbones probably won’t help her look better bald the way she wants them to.

Some things just can’t be delivered better in song form, like telling your friends that you’re switching schools, and like lying to them to say that.

(She should have told them by now. Like, that’s on her, she knows. She totally should have told them. _But_. It is so much better _not_ to.)

She cries when she tells them, and they don’t get it. That’s her fault, but that hole that she’s digging keeps getting deeper, and she’s just got so many more things to deal with, life or death things. (Mostly death things.)

Jade barely says anything. Just looks at the ground. And Tori just can’t blame her.

 

Jade’s pissed off now, for real. What else can she be? Tori’s all but dropped off the face of the Earth. Jade hasn’t seen her in person since she left school. Their texts are few and far between, but nothing’s official, because when is it _ever_ official between them?

So, she didn’t want to _ruin_ things, because Tori is, like, the _one good thing_. But she just can’t go on like _this_ , with _nothing_ between their words, too fucking afraid to say _anything_ , Tori not saying _anything_ , nothing _ever_ official.

But that’s all Jade wants. For Tori to stop being so fucking _spineless_ , tell her it’s over like they’re fucking _adults_. She’s so _over_ this, being strung along, and she _tells_ Tori so, over the phone, when she finally fucking answers.

And Tori starts to cry. Like, really cry. And Jade almost thinks about telling her off, but she just _can’t_. And she doesn’t know what to _do_. So she just sits on the phone and listens to Tori cry, wondering what the fuck she’ll have to say for herself when she catches her breath again.

Tori tells Jade everything until they’re both crying, and Jade knows she is the worst not-girlfriend a person could have. How could she not have noticed? Why does she always have to think the worst of everybody? _How_ could she not have fucking noticed?

(And, briefly: _how could Tori have kept this from her?_ But that’s fleeting, and Jade just _gets_ it, _gets_ Tori, figures she could not have treated her worse if they tried.)

Jade makes the drive to the hospital in the dark with tears in her eyes. Finds the room even though they’re just nearing the end of visiting hours.

If Tori looks awful, then Jade just doesn’t notice. It’s the first time she’s seen her in what feels like forever. (It’s been months. It’s been a few months.) And Jade just doesn’t know what to say.

So Tori starts, because she figures she should. “I’m sorry.”

“No-”

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

They go back and forth tearfully, both sorry, both desperately happy to see one another, both trying to find the space in between to figure out if they should be happy or sad or scared, or maybe just _sorry_.

“They say I’m getting better,” Tori says.

“That’s… that’s _good_.”

“Yeah. I think, you know, my chances are getting better.” Tori hates saying that. _My chances_.

Jade gives a long pause. What can she say, really? There’s just too much. Too much to register, too much to take in. But they’re there, together. So, she says the only thing she can really think to. “I think you’re gonna be fine.”

And so Jade gets into the shitty hospital bed with Tori, and she holds her until they both fall asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> u can rq a fic of ur own at kryptomb.tumblr.com/ask if u want and also feel free to leave a comment. damn leave me a whole editorial in this bitch if u want! or just drop parts u liked or something love u all hope u enjoyed


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